


What our Ashes Left Behind

by orphan_account



Category: Food Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I Will Go Down With This Ship, I thought my first fanfic of this would be my homestuck au but it wasn't, Implied/Referenced Past Slavery, Nightmares, You're Welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 16:50:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15689463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: When the fire burns your dreams and you wake up with nothing but ashes, he is there to hold you. In these moments, he is a king that has fallen from grace and needs to be held like he holds you after every terror that plagues your mind. He is the kind of suffering and sacrifice and regret. And you, well, you are his queen.





	What our Ashes Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> This is a human AU, so I am not calling them Milk and Coffee. Here are the guides for the names:  
>  **Anaka** \- Milk  
>  **Balan** \- Coffee  
>  **Donnovan** \- Milk and Coffee's previous Master Attendant
> 
> * * *
> 
> This is my first FF fanfic, so please be kind!

You wake up with at start at 3:15 while the flames still burn down the corners of your mind. Your chest falls up and down so quickly that you fear it might kill you, though your breathing is somehow silent.

Your partner lied beside you, still trapped in slumber, and his breathing is rhythmic and calm. You look down at him and you see him bathed in sleep and dressed in peace not unlike late evenings on the beach. Even his breathing sounds like the waves. You focus heavily on that sound, force yourself to breathe in and out until you match him perfectly, and fill your mind with thoughts of the ocean. Gentle winds and crashing waves that match the rhythm of your love's breathing, salty air that stings your cheeks even as you smile, and the damp feeling of the water consume you until you are far away from the burning house that once occupied your brain.

You are somewhere else now, filled with water that won't burn and wind that blows away the memories that haunt you, and you can be in this place as you beside a man that has lived his life in the flames so he also would never burn. Your heart warms at the thought, even as it hurts, that your beloved husband had suffered so much so he could be prepared for the suffering of the future. That pain means you can keep him, you know, but you'd rather lose him a thousand times than think of the horrific torture he endured.

Your safe place at the beach falls away under the weight of those thoughts.

Before you even notice his breathing change, your husband sits up on the bed. You glance over at him in shock, only for your eyes to linger on him for longer than you had meant. He looked so different at night, a change you both resent and relish. His hair gel washed away under the touch of the shower and the sunglasses that his away ocean blue rested on the nightstand where they belonged, while his work clothes had been replaced with soft plaid that wrapped him in the same safety and comfort you found simply in his presence. In this place, rid of all the masks he forged for himself, he was nothing short of beautiful.

"Hello love," he said softly, a tired smile twitching up as you force your gaze to snap to attention again. "A nightmare?"

For one moment, you consider lying. There are plenty of other reasons for you to be awake at this hour, which he himself knows without a doubt. It is only the fact that he is testing you, testing to see how much you're ready to share so he can worry accordingly, that makes you hold your tongue. The falsehoods to ease his pain fall away and you allow yourself to be as raw and bare as he is for you when you offer up your meager nod.

Warm arms wrap around you and hold you in place. Cold seeps from your shoulders and you lean into your husband, your eyes sliding closed as his ocean blue ones gaze down at you. Sadness is still trapped in your chest, in your hands, in the feet that did not rush towards the man you could have learned to love, but some of it rests now that your husband has lifted your burden from you. He has always had a way of taking your pain and adding it to the suffering branded into his shoulders.

Tonight, as you lean into his chest and your hands desperately grip the thin material of his shirt, you can find it in yourself to be grateful for that talent.

One hand reaches up to run through your white-blonde hair while the other wraps tightly around your back to keep you grounded in the place you belong. "Anaka," he says softly, his voice tinged with grief, "there was nothing we could have done."

"No," you admit, though the words are no comfort as you continue on. "As it stood on that night, there was nothing we could have done to save him. We were far too distant for that, then."

Balan sighs deeply and moves you so your gazes lock. His are the color of ocean waves, tinged with grief and blended with worry. The small smile he had before was still present, as he still had one scrap of kindness left for the woman who grieved unjustly for a man who never loved her and never would. You hardly deserved such treatment, a fact he knew yet ignored as he leaned down to rest his lips upon yours.

You lean up gently, desparately, and allow his tongue to slip into your mouth and erase the pain raging inside your head. You miss the man called Donnovan, a man you may never truly know while being a man you know too well, and you grieve for him. Yet you cannot feel guilt for your misspent grief as a man who was loved so dearly by the man you missed, a man who could never have loved Donnovan the way your master craved, holds you and shared your grief beside you.

The kiss turns from desperately gentle to passionate and you rise into dominance, guiding the kiss until he allows you to take what you want and bestow upon him every reward for his suffering you can fathom. As he slides down below you, allowing you control you never had before and will never have outside this room, you reach a high you never want to come down from. A soft little sound of desperation falls from your husband's lips and you smile.

With you two like this, you feel almost like a queen.


End file.
